Okita's Assassin
by RyuFanatic
Summary: A spy named Masori allows himself to be captured by the Shinsengumi and secretly assassinate Souji Okita.


*Not completed* I decided to restart this whole story ^^" So here it is, hoping whoever reads enjoys it. Note: Masori, his lord, and Oijou are made up.

P.S. I only watched the anime, so I don't know anything in the manga, excuse me if i get pasts wrongs. I'm making it all up! ;x

This is purely a fanfic ;D

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**Okita's Assassin.**

**Part One: Yatyusa Masori  
**

Tonight was darkly ominous, windy and cloudy, and seemed to stretch on and on as the spy leapt onto one roof and continued forward to the others. He managed not to trip on the first step, for once, and congratulated himself on discovering (finally!) the secret of balancing on iron-shingled tops of buildings. The spy's lord, Masyuma Katurio, was a I-take-crap-from-no-one kind of person, and the spy wondered why Katurio hadn't realized that he (the spy) was a very inadequate person for this type of recon job. Better yet, why had Katurio even allowed the consideration of him, Yatyusa Masori, into so important of a mission that one inch of discovery would result in a thousand seppukus intensified by a moment of horrific, heinous torture...?

_The world may never know the musings of such a person as Masyuma Katurio_, Masori deduced, and continued his sprint through the night.

The assignment was simple enough. Get in and get out. Just purely information gathering and mediorce spying skills were required. The major problem about this was the fact that Masori had been ordered to infiltrate the highly barred and steel-gate facility of the police force the Shinsengumi, or Mibu wolves, and if he was caught, he would have to face the wrath of the notorious samurai Hijikata Toshizo. The 19-year-old shivered at the thought of facing this egregious person they called the "demon of Shinsengumi".

Masori guessed it was his fault that Katurio had given him this mission. He was a klutz by nature and tended to do more bad than good. The day before, the ninja/spy was commanded to watch out for any intruders entering Oijou castle, especially those from the police. Not only had he failed to report back to Katurio in time to prevent massive slaughter from both sides, but he'd also managed to slip on a sword lying on the ground and slit open his left hand. Katurio had not been happy.

"Masori," his master had said only 30 minutes earlier when the youth was safely in the confines of Oijou castle, nursing his wound. "I have a special mission for you."

_For me?_ Masori was shocked. Though he wasn't stupid or slow and his fighting abilities were surprisingly high (above average), Masori knew for a fact that he was the biggest klutz when it came to being stealthy and sneaky...

"I know you won't like this, and it's probably why I'm making you do it," Katurio had continued primly after the long silence. "You are to break and enter, performing a reconnaissance operation that entails full success and no errors in part or whole upon completion. That means, my dear, maladroit Masori, you are to spy on the Shinsengumi and report their plans to me without messing up. Which also means you are not allowed a slip of your foot, literally... or I myself will have to kill you, slit open your neck, pour your blood in a bowl, and drink it during sake time. Understood?"

And how could one argue with a command like that?

_Shinsengumi._

Masori narrowed his eyes as his thoughts drifted back to the present. His grip on his short swords tightened. _Do you know, Katurio-sensei, that I have hated the Shinsengumi for my entire life…?_ Normally a happy-go lucky kind of person, the spy's now resolute expression was more sober by the revelation that perhaps he was afraid of the Mibu wolves, deep down inside. They ruled the streets of Kyoto with a firm rein, so people said; their squadrons of captains consisting of the most highly elite and powerful samurais. And he loathed them all. _I've yet to see one of these so called 'elites'._

Of course, as Masori leapt down from a tall-piked building and almost slipped down to the ground, he wondered what the purpose of this mission was. It seemed pure suicide, attempting to break into such a well-guarded, fenced building of this large degree. Never been tried before, and even if was to be tried, at least send someone in the gilt-edged section of Oijou, someone who could actually jump over barbed wires without piercing his butt along the way... Wait, maybe it was meant to be suicide...

...

_Katurio can't hate me that much... can he?_

Finally, after about 10 more minutes of running (he could never understand how the elite ninjas could sprint non-stop for so long), Masori turned around a corner and was met with a full front view of the Shinsengumi police base. It was a pretty decent size, with brick and stonewalls securing the inside perimeter of the building. Juts of the gray shingled-roof tops that were a necessity for every Japanese structure loomed over the high-vaulted fence. A simple door sat between him and his destination. Masori managed to find a secure hiding spot between the crevices of two buildings adjacent to his designated target, and glanced sneakily at the wooden door which was to be his barrier that night. It was solid and very large, with an iron lock in the middle… _There's no way I can break into a building like that with my current stealth level _(very low). If he had to seek access, then perhaps by another method… Though unknown to his lord Katurio and most of his ninja comrades, Masori actually excelled in one aspect of his spying life- disguise and mimicry. It was, to him, a very useful skill to have and he did it without fail. Maybe that was the reason Katurio didn't just boot him out of Oijou- he was the best out of all the ninjas training under Katurio's wing.

_I could disguise myself as a country-side ronin looking for shelter from the night._ It was a very lame story and if the samurais were as good as the rumors held true then they would recognize his lies instantly.

"Oi, Shinpachi, look at this."

The voice belonged to the Shinsengumi was currently on guard. He was a tall, black-haired samurai with two whisker like scars on the left side of his cheek. At the moment, his tanned face was lit up in excitement at the person he was talking to on the opposite side of the wooden door.

"Eh, what is it?" came his friend Shinpachi's breezy reply.

The tall Shinsengumi burst out into loud and obnoxious laughter and pulled something out of his sleeve to show the person he was talking to. Another set of annoying and immensely booming laughs, coupled by the fact that the two were attempting to spit out incomprehensible words at the same time.

"… Oh that's perfect… Should give it to puppy-kun…" the hidden samurai choked out.

"… Exactly!" The tall one grinned appreciatively at his comrade. They continued to collapse into more random fits of laughter before settling down into a slightly calmer atmosphere. Then he leaned back against the wall looking through the crack of the door that was revealed. His tone took a small note of contemplation and nonchalant-ness. "I wonder why we tease him so much."

Masori could imagine the Shinpachi person shrugging. "Who knows, really? I mean, he's just so short and pick-on-able. Besides, there's something suspicious with him spending so much time with Souji…"

"Hmmm."

"I wonder what it is they're doing together…"

"Hmmm."

There ensued a brief silence, where the tall Shinsengumi twisted his face into a long, and to Masori, very painful look of thought. Then, so suddenly and fiercely, the expression on his face morphed into stunned revelation, surprise, and horror all at once.

"Wait a minute…" the samurai said in a low and dark voice, "you can't be jealous, Shinpachi?"  
…

"Ehh…….??"

A look of idiot triumph filled the samurai's features. "So it's true! You want puppy-kun all to yourself and now that Souji's hogging him-"

"… What are you talking about, Sanosuke…"

The hoveringly tall imbecile Sanosuke gasped as another thought crossed his mind. "You can't... what do you want from… puppy… That's horrible, Shinpachi!"

"What…??"

"Everytime he's around, you're always jumping up and tryin' to get his attention-"

"Wow… you must be joking."

"I'm serious! You-"

And then it happened, so abruptly and subtly that Masori, who was watching and wondering when the two would cease their idiotic argument, almost didn't have time to react. The spring of shurikens darted out of the shadows from the sky, aimed for his heart. It was a full 3 seconds before the spy realized they were there and it took another 5 seconds for him to hastily leap out the way. In the time that elapsed as Masori attempt to dodge the attack, one shuriken cuffed him on the left ear and another embedded itself into his right ankle. Blood was immediate, a nice thin yet very noticeable trail of liquid that was already speckling the ground. _Damn it._ This meant he couldn't run away- they would track him to the ends of Japan using his own blood against him. Masori jumped backwards and away from his intended targetry building, knowing that at least a perimeter of the area was covered with enemy ninjas. _Where could they be?_ The spy's carefree eyes took on a harsher look as he surveyed the scene before him, his short swords already in gripped hands. The two baka samurais were still fighting about this "puppy-kun" and there seemed no other signs of life in the midnight scenery of Kyoto…

The air rippled slightly to the right, and Masori ducked just in time to escape being decapitated by an incoming kunai. The safest place for a ninja is the roof, he remembered while vaguely eluding a spray of revolving catapult balls. Though the spy knew his life was currently in danger, he couldn't help but breath a groan of impatience at the guarding samurais. They were still heatedly debating.

"Don't you think you should leave him alone?!" Sanosuke was retorting.

"What does that have to do with anything...??"

"Because you're spending more time with him than…"

Masori didn't hear the rest.

A whistle sounded beside his ear. High pitched and glaring across the emptiness of midnight. Masori whirled around and raised his swords, instinctively blocking attacks from the dark. His eyes, though used to the blackness of night, were being tested to their limit now as more and more shurikens and kunais rain down from the sky- all intent on carving his skin with wounds. This enemy was invisible, or so it seemed to the 18-year-old as he swerved, ducked, and dodged his way around the rooftop, slashing his weapon wildly in an attempt to ward off the assaults.

"Ughh…" A missile of spikes shot past his defense and into his left arm. Breathing heavily, Masori struggled to sprint through and out the downpour of weapons. He guessed that it was at least close to one o'clock now, and soon Katurio would be wondering what kind of mess Masori had gotten into this time. _You have no idea, sensei… _

The spy winced as another shuriken lodged into his flesh; and while still running (something he forced upon himself if he wished to survive), Masori pondered the enormity of his situation. Although the idea of breaking into Shinsengumi base seemed preposterous in the beginning, when he'd taken a look at the lax security, it had suddenly appeared quite possible. Almost as easy as getting drunk on sake…

How naïve of him. _I didn't even take time to look for traps._ Now he was paying for it with his own skin. Wounds after wounds surfaced continuously, tattering his clothing and streaming blood out like a gusher. It seemed almost like a dream state where he was moving forward, so fast that the bleak world passed in a blur, yet getting no where at all. The same shingle-roof of a building… the same hawk flying over his head as he raced onward… the same. _Same everything._ Masori blinked his eyes to stop a small swell of tears from forming; he cursed his stupidity and clumsiness to hell. He had never realized before that underneath the coat and armor of a ninja, or even a samurai really, was a human being with blood and flesh to pierce and die from. He had never before acknowledged the fact that, while on missions, there was always a chance of immediate death and danger… Instead, he'd spent most of his spying life toning things of unimportance, not focusing on the necessities of a spy. Never dwelling on the fact that someday, he would need the very lessons he'd ignored in the past…

"Gah..."

A sharp knife struck his right ankle, causing him to fall to his knees. And then, through the blinding pain and spots of red, the spy knew quite suddenly and plainly that he was going to die. He wasn't really surprised, and wondered at his luck of having survived for nineteen long years without being killed. And there wasn't so much as terror with this revelation of death, just a slight tingle of sadness. As he let himself fall down on top of the roof of the building he'd been caught on, Masori stared out blankly in the dark night. _So abrupt_, he thought. _It had all happened so fast. _Though, if he was going to die, there were many things to think about before he entered the void. So many things he would regret upon, the youth considered a bit woefully.

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_"Master Katurio!" _

_He was only 12 years old, fierce and determined, and very lively. Masori bounded into Yatyusa Katurio's room, where the older man was sitting down drawing on the paper in front of him. His master's hand twitched slightly at being interrupted but the reply was neutral. "Yes, young one?" _

_"Master master master! Guess what I did?!"_

_"Grace me with your intelligence, Masori." _

_He proudly held out his hand, where two daisies flowered on them. They were both healthy and blooming, but nothing especially unique about them. Katurio raised a long eyebrow. "How nice," the man commented wryly._

_But Masori only grinned. "Here, look at it now, master." The boy flipped the daisy over with great ease and watched his master's face transform from boredom to incredulity. The flowers had actually been nothing but handfuls of dirt, cleverly disguised and persuaded to mimic into beautiful daisies by Masori._

_"How.. did you do this?" The astonishment of his sensei only caused a greater smile to spread across Masori's face. _

_"It's a secret, master," the youth supplied good-naturedly. "But I thought it was really cool."_

_"And very useful," Katurio added solemnly. The man leaned closer to his now-curious apprentice and placed a hand on Masori's shoulder. "Now," Katurio said, "how about disguising yourself as something or someone else?"_

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Katurio-sensei. Hah. A cunning and stubborn person, sometimes a bit foul and cruel-spirited, though a very faithful and loyal man. Masori wondered if he would miss his short-tempered sensei, the one person that could order him around whenever he wished, could beat the youth with the crudest and roughest sticks if he misbehaved. Someone who had given him a home to come back to whenever he needed... Would Masori miss Katurio when he was gone...? _Of course I will._

"How stupid, sensei," Masori mumbled, his gaze getting heavier and heavier by the second. Even the piercing pain everywhere was slightly dull and numb now. He guessed it was the final stage. He would soon be gone. "I'm so useless... I can't do anything right..." _I have failed you. _

_

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**First part, kinda rushed at the ending but finally done with it ^^ Hope to continue more, be wary for updates ;P **

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